


Cooking For One

by kuonji



Series: Points In Common, side stories, misc. stories, AU story [5]
Category: C6D - Fandom, Wilby Wonderful (2004)
Genre: Backstory, Character Development, Character Study, F/M, Friendship, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-24
Updated: 2011-09-24
Packaged: 2017-10-24 00:38:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/256901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuonji/pseuds/kuonji
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fourth of the Side Stories for Points In Common.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>Sandra's mum made the best chicken pot pies in town.  At least, that's what Sandra always thought.  The meat was tender, the vegetables fresh but well done.  The sauce was a perfect blend of richness and spice.  She spent half an hour cutting and braiding the dough into picture perfect lattices that came out flaky and fluffy and deliciously buttery without ever becoming too heavy.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Cooking For One

**Author's Note:**

> Alternative Links:  
> <http://kuonji14.livejournal.com/46055.html>

Sandra's mum made the best chicken pot pies in town. At least, that's what Sandra always thought. The meat was tender, the vegetables fresh but well done. The sauce was a perfect blend of richness and spice. She spent half an hour cutting and braiding the dough into picture perfect lattices that came out flaky and fluffy and deliciously buttery without ever becoming too heavy.

Sandra would sit at the kitchen table and color or do her homework or help shell peas or peel potatoes while her mother sang and worked, turning out feasts of filling pies, juicy ribs, aromatic soups, flavorful stews, layered pastries, and home-made candies.

"The way to a man's heart is through his stomach," she used to say, sometimes cheerful, sometimes wistful, sometimes hopeful, and in the end -- ironic.

Because all the stews and ribs in the world were not enough to keep hold of Sandra's father's heart. He finally left them for good when Sandra was fourteen.

***

Sandra smoothed her shirt another time as she waited for someone to answer the door. She wondered again if she should have dressed more conservatively, but, as she kept telling herself, that would just seem even more odd. Her hair was tied back, at least, and she had made sure her makeup was lighter than she normally liked it.

She heard the locks on the door opening, and for a second, she panicked as she wondered if she should have gone to the deli after all. She'd wanted to avoid embarrassment in case this didn't go the way she'd hoped, and she'd wanted to keep a little secrecy about it even if it did, at least until she could be more sure of things. But maybe this was just giving the wrong impression all over. Maybe--

"Yes?"

Betty Pearce, backlit by the glass light fixture on the wall of her foyer, stood in simple green trousers and a grey sweater.

"Hi. I'm Sandra Anderson. I run Iggy's."

"Yes, I know." The tone was curious and nothing more.

Sandra hesitated, nervous about presuming. She felt like a little girl somehow, in front of this woman, who was a housewife, a mother of three, and a businesswoman with an established home and family and a solid reputation.

"Would you like to come in?"

"Thank you." Relieved, Sandra followed the other woman inside.

"Who is it?" a man's voice asked. Ted Pearce, tall and broad-shouldered with a comfortable paunch, strolled in from the hallway. He frowned for a second before his face cleared. "Sandra, right?"

"Hi." She smiled warmly. Men had always made her feel more welcome than women did. She knew better how to respond to them.

"I'm Ted." He held out his hand, and she took it gratefully.

"I know. You make the best sandwiches on Wilby. I eat there all the time."

Ted laughed good-naturedly. "Thanks for the custom."

"What did you need, Sandra?" Betty asked. Her voice was not quite as welcoming as it had been a minute ago, and her open expression had shuttered slightly. God, Sandra had botched it all _already_. Hastily, she assessed her stance, trying to lean a bit away from Ted, somehow show that she was only here to talk.

"You two are friends with Duck, aren't you?" she asked, careful to include them both. "And Dan?"

"Yes." She had apparently saved the situation. Betty had relaxed slightly.

"It's about their wedding," she continued, feeling more confident now.

***

When Jack Lafferty got Sandra pregnant in May of sophomore year of high school, Sandra didn't know what was going to happen. She imagined embarrassment, perhaps, trouble with their parents. But she also imagined wedding bells and a new house and a sweet baby. After all, Jack loved her. Forever, he'd said. He'd even copied out a poem by e.e. cummings for her that she kept inside the front pocket of her notebook.

_i like to feel the spine / of your body and its bones, and the trembling / -firm-smooth ness and which i will / again and again and again / kiss_

Again and again and again... She would whisper those words as they made love, as he entered her, as he kissed her breasts and told her she was beautiful and he would never leave her because she was so hot and gorgeous and he loved her.

Her mother brought her dinner in bed on a smooth wooden tray with a cloth napkin and a bright yellow dandelion, still slightly leaking sap. The meal was fresh-baked French bread soaked in beef barley soup. The crumbly skin of the bread made a perfect counterpoint to the spicy broth. It was nutritious and filling and had love tucked into every corner.

That was two weeks after she -- but not Jack -- was temporarily suspended from school for indecent behavior. One week after she found out Jack had been telling all his friends what an easy lay she was. Two days after Pamela and her friends wrote SLUT on her driveway. Three hours after she got the abortion.

She cried into her soup bowl as her mother held her aching body and sang softly in her ear.

***

After the men left, Betty grabbed Sandra's hands and laughed. "Oh my god, they said yes! We're really doing this! I'm so excited!"

Bewildered but caught up by the other woman's high spirits, Sandra laughed along with her. "It's going to be a lot of work," she warned. "Thanks for going with me on this."

"I'm just so glad you found out about this and had this idea. The poor boys. Pam is a bigoted, bullying old witch."

Sandra silently agreed, but she didn't feel quite up to speaking ill of anyone behind their backs. It felt hypocritical. Just the same, she felt a surge of-- gratefulness? kinship? for the other woman.

Sandra started to gather their notepads and the detritus from the snacks they'd served, while Betty wiped down the table with movements as practiced as Sandra's own. "Would you like to stay for lunch?" Betty asked.

She paused for a second at the unexpectedness of the invitation, before quickly accepting it. "That would be wonderful. What can I do to help?"

"I'm afraid I'm a terrible cook. I usually have sandwiches, whatever's been on the shelves longest that needs to be gotten rid of."

"Hey, I'll take it. Eddie's makes the best sandwiches in town."

Betty accepted the compliment easily with a tilt of her head. "Don't look at me. I just keep the books and man the register sometimes. It's a good thing we have my Ted and you, or heaven knows what the guests at the reception will be eating."

"Speaking of which, you mentioned last time that Suzanne has a good recipe for fish chowder. Is that Suzanne Olsen, Mike Olsen's wife?"

"Yeah, that's right. Do you know her?"

"She's in Dan's movie club. I've only been a couple of times, but I can get her number from Dan."

"I've never been at all, though Duck tells me stories about it sometimes. Apparently, it's a happening place." Betty smiled and shook her head. "Rebecca from the flower shop is the vice president, I hear. Her beef chili won first place at last year's Victoria fair. Maybe we could ask her for her recipe, too."

Sandra remembered Rebecca as an excessively frank woman whose small round face had been nearly aglow with curiosity the first time they'd met. Certainly, her brand of gossip was less mean-spirited than Irene's was, but she made Sandra feel uncomfortable. Sandra supposed there must be something likeable about the woman, though, since she was Dan's friend. For one thing, she was doing the centerpieces for the reception at cost.

 _"She offered to make me a bridal bouquet, too,"_ Dan had told her, chuckling.

"I'll call her up," she decided. "Everyone loves a good chili."

***

Deena was Sandra's best friend growing up. They used to do all the girly things together, braiding each other's hair and sneaking Deena's mother's makeup and talking about boys. Sandra's mum taught them how to make cookies and brownies and cakes from scratch. They spent long afternoons together, gossiping and covered with flour, throwing peanuts at each other, then cleaning up.

After Sandra's dad left, Deena was really nice to her, but it wasn't long after that that Harold Theodore (a _senior_ who had a _car_ ) asked Deena to go steady. Deena didn't have a mean bone in her body, but she was easily distracted. Sandra knew that about her.

That only made it hurt a little bit less when Deena would talk about nothing else except 'her' Harold whenever they got together. When they baked cookies at all anymore, Deena made a big show of wrapping up the best ones to take to her boyfriend.

Sandra thought that getting a boyfriend of her own would help, give them something in common to talk about again. At the very least, she would have a distraction of her own. But she and Arnie didn't last long. And then she met Jack, and after that, it was Sandra who didn't want to talk to anyone anymore.

When Sandra finally returned to Wilby, Deena was one of the first to welcome her back. Deena had gotten married and then divorced in the meantime, so she had loads of gossip to catch Sandra up on, not to mention, plenty of time for long lunches and weekend shopping dates. Sandra invited her to dinner sometimes, and they sat around afterward, curling each other's hair and painting their nails and talking about men. It was almost exactly like before.

Sandra loved Deena. The company of the former bubbly, generous, excitable girl, now a bubbly, generous, excitable woman, was what made Wilby bearable the first week and honestly fun later on. Sometimes, though, when she'd had a few drinks and was feeling down, Sandra wondered if she was only capable of being friends with deadbeats and airheads and freaks.

People like herself.

***

"I had... a few boyfriends, I guess. I don't know. Guys I'd meet up with at bars and parties, mostly. The longest one lasted about five months, and I kind of gave up after that. None of them feel like they were serious anymore, anyway, compared to-- you know."

Sandra smiled fondly at her friend. "I bet Duck would like to hear you say that."

Dan shrugged and fiddled with his napkin. It was a slow day, on account of the weather, so they were alone in the diner. With the rain sluicing down outside, dampening sight and sound, they could be the only people in the whole world.

"I-- I think--" he said, somewhat stiltedly. He glanced up at her, then dropped his gaze back to his plate. "I think Duck was with someone before me. I mean, someone serious. Only, it didn't work out. Somehow. He won't talk about it with me."

She watched him stir his fork through the remnants of sauce from his meatloaf for a few seconds. "Sometimes it's easier not to, I guess. Sometimes it just hurts too much."

"Yeah. I know. It's not like I ever talk about..." He finished the sentence with another shrug, but immediately shook his head. He put his fork down. "I miss her," he admitted softly. "Val was my best friend. I wish I hadn't ruined it all." He began stacking their dirty plates and cutlery together with his wide, long-fingered hands.

She put a hand on his wrist to stop him, then simply left it there until he sighed and looked up. "I miss her. But if I had it to choose, between now, and having Val back, I still wouldn't choose her. Isn't that rotten?"

"No," she answered. "Just human. And practical."

"Yeah. Not everyone gets a second chance like I did." He shrugged. "So how about you? Had anyone special in the past?"

She leaned her head on one hand, her elbow on the counter, and looked at him. "Emily's dad was a mainlander. He was only here for a week. I'll bet he doesn't even know he has a daughter. I don't think he'd care if he did."

That had been shortly before she left Wilby -- but long before Dan's time here. There weren't many other people she would have needed to tell this to. Just coming back to the Island with Emily, grown up, reminded everybody about what had happened.

"I was lonely. It seemed like a good idea at the time."

He put his arm around her, and she leaned into it. Two years ago, if a man had held her like this, she might have done more than lean. One year ago, she might have pushed him away. Now she turned her head into the softness of his flannel shirt and let herself drift.

"Maybe it was a good idea. Emily's my angel."

She drew away then, and he caught her for a second and kissed her temple before letting her go. Dan didn't want anything more from her than that, and he loved her just the same.

"Have you guys decided on the cake you want yet?" she asked, as they both stood.

He shook his head and showed her a wry smile. "I want vanilla. Duck wants _lemon_. We're still duking it out. Who has lemon cake at a wedding?"

***

Buying Iggy's had been an impulse. Sandra had only the foggiest idea how to run a diner, and only the next foggiest idea how to cook for one. There was a significant difference between heating frozen dinners for two and serving up fresh grub for up to thirty at a time.

"It'll be easy!" she had assured Emily, affecting a confident, cavalier air that she didn't exactly feel.

It wasn't until the day after Dan Jarvis almost hanged himself that she and Emily sat down and wrote out a brunch menu together. They started small, eggs and pancakes and home fries and toast -- things that were easy for either someone new to cooking (Emily) or extremely rusty at it (herself), and that wouldn't cost them too much if they did mess up. When that went well, French toast and hash browns and country fried steak were added. Then Sandra started trying some old recipes she remembered, and some new things she had picked up in towns on the mainland.

Quite to her surprise, the people of Wilby loved almost everything she turned out. Pretty soon, they had a rotating weekly menu, with fresh-baked treats on Sundays that folks lined up in advance to buy. Sandra started a Mystery Item Wednesday that she used for experimentation, and that was popular, too.

It seemed that the way to the people's hearts really was through their stomachs.

Sometimes, when it was busy and Sandra spent all her time in the kitchen wrangling the boiling stove, the smoking grill, and the overflowing sink, she would suddenly freeze in a moment of panic.

Was she turning into a faceless cooking machine? Did her customers even know who she was? Did they care, as long as she kept turning out tasty dishes for them to talk over and to celebrate reunions and parties with? If she disappeared, would they all simply remove themselves to the next restaurant down the block, as if she had never existed?

But inevitably, Emily or Peter, their new part-time waiter, would burst in through the dividing curtain with a fresh order and a harried look, saying, "Mrs. Corkhum made me promise to remind you -- _again_ \-- that she doesn't want salt on her vegetables. And for what it's worth, Deena says tonight's fish and chips are the best yet, but she _always_ says that."

So then Sandra would cluck her tongue admonishingly like her mother used to and say, "Be nice. These people are paying your wages."

It was one of the things about Wilby that had used to drive her crazy: There was simply no way to be anonymous here. She had once thought that was a curse.

She wasn't sure she thought so anymore.

***

"Sandra!"

She glanced up at the call but didn't slow her feet, not wanting to hold onto the not-quite-boiling pot of chowder in her gloved hands a second longer than necessary.

It was a good thing the reception happened to be just next door to the place she was renting. In fact, that was what had first sparked her idea, when Dan had angrily told her how the Loyalist wouldn't take their reservation, at the same time as he had related how Pam's Catering was insisting on charging an arm and a leg.

"But there's nowhere else we can get food at that volume, and she knows it. What are people going to do if we can't at least feed them? Play board games and bingo, I suppose. The senior center has everything right there, after all," he'd postulated wryly. Once the rare anger had drained out of him, he'd looked so sad and resigned. Sandra had known she had to help if she could.

"Anything else need carrying?" Suzanne asked her now. She was already bundling her shawl into her purse and shoving it into her husband's hands. Mike had to juggle it along with a large wrapped box.

"Yes, thank you! Go to my house. Emily will show you what to do."

"Where do I put these?" Sandra heard Mike asking plaintively.

She smiled to herself as she bumped the door of the senior center open with her backside and carried the pot carefully to the edge of the serving table. She hadn't seen Suzanne since they'd all taken Dan out together to Liverpool for his bachelor's party. It'd been Rebecca's idea originally, though ultimately they had all had a part in the planning, huddled over a table with coffee and cupcakes after Iggy's had closed for the night.

After she had set the soup down atop its trivet and arranged the serving ladles, Sandra straightened with a sigh and caught sight of Rebecca where she was re-checking one of her centerpieces at the chief table. They exchanged smiles.

Deena waved to her and flashed her a thumbs up from the front, where a handful of guests were signing in.

"Is that all of it?" Betty bustled down from the other end of the serving tables, past rows of sandwiches and salads and steaming pots of soup. She paused to neaten up a pile of napkins and then to wipe the back of a hand across her forehead.

"There's some desserts left, and that's it. Suzanne's helping Emily to bring those in," Sandra informed her, fanning herself with her doffed gloves.

"I can't believe we really did it." Betty slumped down into a chair, only to spring back to her feet the next moment, her eyes on the clock. "Oh my goodness, they're going to be here in less than half an hour, and I still have to change!"

"I'll help you with your makeup if you want," Sandra offered.

"Oh, would you? Thanks."

They got back just on time, as it turned out, a few minutes before the main men of the day came through the front doors hand in hand. Betty made it a point to pile a tall plate of food for Duck and deliver it to him after the speeches were over.

"I told you we could handle it," she told him triumphantly, not a trace of her former disbelief evident anymore. Sandra raised her eyebrows at Betty, who stuck her tongue out behind Duck's back.

Duck, dapper and handsome and surprisingly at ease in his suit, hunched his shoulders shyly. "I never said you couldn't," he mumbled, quickly stuffing a forkful of potato salad in his mouth.

"Yeah, right," Betty said in a loud whisper to Sandra. Sandra giggled into her hand as Duck protested more vociferously, turning red to his ear tips -- until finally, a savior appeared for him.

"Ladies, stop torturing my husband." Love, undiluted and unwavering, was clear in Dan's eyes as he said that last word. He put an arm around Duck's shoulders and gazed at him with a look that could only be called sappy.

Sandra waited for that feeling of jealousy that she always felt when she saw a new couple together -- but it didn't come. She just felt... happy. And intensely proud about her part in this day.

Betty bumped her shoulder. As if echoing Sandra's thoughts, she said, "We done good."

Sandra couldn't agree more.

***

"I told you, Mum. I'm keeping it. I'm not going to change my mind." That had been almost the last thing Sandra had said to her mother before leaving Wilby Island.

It was a shock now to be back -- back in Wilby, back here on the steps of this house, back where she'd started. Sandra's mother had aged so much. She seemed... wrung out, like a piece of cloth washed over and over until the pattern still held but you could see right through it. It made Sandra ache inside that she hadn't been here, that her mother's attitude hadn't allowed her to be here.

There was little trace now of the woman who had screamed, _"How could you? How could you leave me?"_ over the phone to her until Sandra had had to hang up on her.

"Hello, Mum," she said quietly. "This is Emily."

A long silence followed.

It was the first time Sandra had seen her mum for sixteen years, and the first time Emily and Sandra's mum had ever met. None of them knew what to say to each other.

Sandra's mind raced uselessly, a perfect blank except for one thing: It had been a long time since she'd felt she needed her mother's approval for anything, and she had something more important than herself to protect now. If her mother were going to raise a fuss over Emily, Sandra would take her daughter and leave. She promised herself that.

Finally, Sandra's mum beckoned Emily to her. "Would you like some coffee cake?" she asked. "The chicken pot pie won't be done for another hour yet. That was always your mother's favorite."

"I like it, too," Emily said, smiling tentatively, and added, "Grandma."

Sandra breathed a sigh of relief. When she took a fresh inhale, her lungs filled with the scent of baking and home, and she realized that she was actually hungry.

***

Sandra was stirring the pot when Emily came home. She tasted the thick mixture directly from her stirring spoon and licked her lips, satisfied. She'd gotten the recipe from her mother last week, and she thought she had finally managed to perfect it.

"Hi, Em. I made pudding. You want some?"

Emily paused to peek into the pot. "It smells great, but not now. Maybe after dinner."

"Okay, sweetie." She listened to Emily bustle busily in her room, doing her teenage things.

Sandra hummed as she served herself. She danced her way to the table, sat down, propped her heels on the next chair, and picked up her spoon with a sigh of true contentment.

  
END.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this story, you might try these:  
> [Wilby, Wonderful Wilby](http://kuonji14.livejournal.com/39441.html) (Wilby Wonderful), by kuonji  
> [Combat Boots](http://kuonji14.livejournal.com/14475.html) (Stargate Atlantis), by kuonji  
> [Let Me Go On](http://pearlo.illuminatedtext.com/fiction/letme.htm) (Wilby Wonderful), by pearl-o


End file.
